An international local content expert has expressed worry that local participation in oil and gas activities in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania is significantly low.

According to Ms Neema K. Lugangira, a former Senior Supplies Officer (local content) at the Ministry of Energy and Minerals in Tanzania said robust policy and strong legal framework were required to improve the situation.

Such legal framework should be well-informed and should be updated accordingly, Ms Lugangira, said, when she spoke on local content at the on-going media training course for ted African Journalists underway in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Being attended by 24 reporters with eight each selected from Ghana Uganda and Tanzania, the 14-day course is sponsored by the Natural Resource Governance Institute.

It was organised by the Journalists Environmental Association of Tanzania in collaboration with Penplusbytes, international ICT Journalism in Ghana and the African Centre for Media Excellence in Tanzania.

The course is aimed at empowering the participants to develop interest in and tell the true story of the extractive sector, especially in the oil, gas and mining.

Ms Lugangira explained that the oil, gas and mining sector offered good opportunity for local businesses to thrive and as such would increase the potential to reduce unemployment but regretted about the lack of stringent local content requirement.

“Only a handful of nationals are engaged in service value chain. Most of the goods and services demanded by the industry are also imported”, she added.

Ms Lugangira who is also a former Acting Director for Local Content in Investments, National Economic Empowerment Council in Tanzania, asked the participants to explore and conduct in-depth comparative analysis on the local content frameworks for the benefit of the three countries.

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